Limbo. Where did Abraham’s soul go after death? “He was gathered to his people” (Gen. 25, 8), i. e. he joined the souls of the just (such as Adam, Abel, Seth, Henoch, Noe &c.), in Limbo. There they rested in the blessed hope and expectation of the coming Redeemer who would deliver them from that prison and take them with Him into the eternal joy of the beatific vision of God.
Application. Begin and end each day, or any important undertaking, with a prayer for God's blessing. Begin with God and end with God; that is the best rule of life.
Are you obliging to your friends, and to strangers, as Rebecca was? Think in what way you can help others, whether brothers, companions, friends, or strangers, and resolve to make use of your opportunities. God will reward each little service you perform.
Chapter XV.
ESAU AND JACOB.
[Gen. 25, 20 to 27, 41.]
ISAAC and Rebecca remained twenty years without children. At length God heard their prayer[1], and gave them two sons. The first-born, Esau, was red and hairy, and of a rough, harsh temper. Jacob, the second, was smooth in appearance and gentle in his bearing. Esau became a skilful hunter and husbandman. Jacob was a plain man, and dwelt in tents. Isaac loved Esau, and ate with pleasure the game that he had killed. Rebecca, on the other hand, loved the mild and gentle Jacob. She loved him the more, because she knew by God’s revelation (Gen. XXV, 23) that he, instead of Esau, had found favour with God[2]. One day Jacob was cooking a mess of pottage[3], when Esau, coming home from the field, faint with hunger, said to his brother: “Give me of this pottage, for I am hungry.” Jacob said to him: “Sell me thy first birthright.” Esau replied: "Lo, I die[4] of hunger: what
- ↑ Their prayer. They had prayed for m&ny years that they might have a son who would be heir of the promises made to Abraham his father.
- ↑ Favour with God. i. e. that it was God's will that he should have precedency over Esau; that he was to be the heir of the promises, the forefather of the chosen people and of the Divine Redeemer.
- ↑ Pottage. A soup of lentils.
- ↑ I die. This was evidently an exaggeration. He might have appeased his hunger with other food; but he had set his heart on this particular mess of lentils, and would have nothing else.
